


Son Of A Bitch!

by tamxiety



Series: Ah, Fuck [2]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Blood, F/F, Gen, Gun Violence, Minor Character Death, Swearing, Vigilante AU, Violence, a lot of swears, gun tw, violence tw
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-12
Updated: 2016-06-27
Packaged: 2018-06-01 18:58:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 18,999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6532288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tamxiety/pseuds/tamxiety
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A continuation of Ah, Fuck in which Lexa is still up to her usual vigilante bullshit and Clarke is trying to live her goddamn life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Lexa Gets A Sandwich

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! I was convinced by some of you lovely people to continue with this AU, so here it is! FYI to newcomers, you should probably read Ah, Fuck before this because this picks up literally hours after that one. All mistakes are my own.

**12:00pm (EXACTLY)** ****  
  


The city always simmers in the summer. The pavement bounces the heat of the blazing sunlight back against the skin of every poor soul on the streets, beading sweat against their skin. It was like the concrete jungle had decided to take a few tips from an actual jungle and crank the humidity and temperature to just below inhumane. Because of this, many people opt to stay in air-conditioned buildings until the sun dips below the skyline and the burnoff of the heat leads to a pleasant mildness. But some, like Lexa herself, are forced to endure the baking.

She knows she doesn’t smell good--not even anywhere in the general goddamn zip code of good--but she walks as normally as possible down the street. Well, as normally as one can when wearing a black sweatshirt at high noon in 85 degree weather. Though, it’s not like she  _ wants  _ to fry, it’s just that the shirt underneath her cotton prison is stained through with blood and, seeing as it’s midday, there’s is nothing else she can do to hide it. So, suffering it is.

A woman completely absorbed by her cellphone jostles Lexa’s right side, sending a jolt of pain skittering across her abdomen. She gasps and jerks away, the woman completely oblivious to her discomfort. The nasty gash across her skin is screaming bloody murder, but Lexa ignores it as best she can. Spitting a stream of curses, she continues her walk. 

It has been sixteen full hours since Lexa has slept and four hours since she left Clarke Griffin’s apartment. One of her biggest regrets in life was not taking the clothes Clarke had offered her the night before. Perhaps then she wouldn’t be walking around in a sweaty, bloody sweatshirt. 

Although, to be fair, her decision had been prompted by her desire to leave as light of an impact on Clarke Griffin’s life as possible. Taking the clothes would have made her feel the need to either return them or provide new ones, which was a kind of extended contact that neither of them would benefit from. 

“Then why did you leave your number, dumbass?” Lexa asks herself, under her breath. Okay, she knew why: If Clarke ran into any trouble after basically saving Lexa’s life, she wanted her to have a way to contact help. Real help. That was also the reason why Lexa had spent those four hours ensuring that the area around Clarke’s apartment was free of any Russian mobsters or influence. It was just simple sweeping reconnaissance, but it assured Lexa of Clarke’s safety going forward, even though there was little to no information to tie her to Lexa in the first place. Regardless, she feels better for having done it.

Except now, in the midday heat, with her stitches practically boiling under her shirt, Lexa just wants to rest for a moment. A bed, a couch, a dry piece of cardboard, anything would do at this point. There’s just one stop she has to make before she can go home. 

Emilio’s Old Fashioned Italian Sandwiches doesn’t look like much from the outside with it’s faded, blue and white striped awning and chipped, white-painted brick. The inside is far more interesting anyway. It’s full of the smell of deli meat and the shop’s special sauce and the walls are covered with framed photographs of the friends and family of none other than Emilio Accorsi. There are pictures of young soldiers in Vietnam, pictures from Italy of a sprawling family crowded close to each other, and pictures in front of this very shop, with a slightly smaller version of that family standing proudly out front. All the photos vary in size and age, but they are all displayed side by side, a beautiful story told in captured moments. 

When Lexa walks in, the bell above the door chimes. Inside the shop is barely any cooler than outside, what with there only being two ancient fans blowing hot air around the room. A pair of old men sit at one of the three total tables, but otherwise there is no one else around. 

From behind the counter, Emilio perks up from his work of seasoning a side of beef. He is a slightly hunched old man with a large nose, skinny arms, and a thick sweep of white hair. His wide, round glasses sit on the bump of his nose, the spot where he says it was broken by an enemy soldier in Vietnam. His wife, however, claims that it was actually a bucket falling on his face.

“Alexandria!” He yells, spreading his bony arms. 

“Hello, Emilio.” She says. He slaps his palms down on the counter and beckons her further into the shop. The two old men don’t look up from their sandwiches.

“Where’ve you been?” He asks as she walks up to the counter. His accent is thick, just like anyone who grew up in one of the boroughs. He goes back to seasoning the beef, all while keeping an ear turned towards her.

“I’ve been working.” Lexa answers. She steps in front of one of the struggling fans. Maybe, if she pretends, it will trick her body into cooling off slightly. 

“Ah,” Emilio nods, “Working.”

Lexa has never revealed to Emilio or his family the nature of her ‘work’, but the weathered old man had an understanding that about when Lexa showed up in the neighborhood was also about the time he stopped getting hustled to sell his shop by certain criminal organizations. He never said anything about it, though. Perhaps it was because they were both soldiers that he kept his connected dots to himself. Perhaps, he could see a thread of similarity. 

“Well, as long as you’re eating and sleeping. Loretta would never let me hear the end of it if I let you wither away.” He finishes his seasoning job and turns back to her. “What can I get for you today?”

“Three of my usual, please.”

“Coming right up.” Emilio smiles, shuffling away. Lexa leans her weight on the counter. Her whole body is burning and it’s not just from the heat--she did have the  _ shit _ beat out of her the night before. Even with pain tolerance as high as the Empire State Building itself, it would be a lie to say she wasn’t feeling her injuries. There is sweat in the cut on her lip and it stings, but it doesn’t sting nearly as bad as the sweat working its way into the  _ bullet graze  _ on her side. She shifts and feels a painful looseness at the edge of the graze. A stitch probably popped at some point in the morning. 

“Okay, here we are. Three usuals, as ordered.” Emilio returns with three wrapped sandwiches, smelling of pulled pork, spices, and that mouth-watering special sauce. He slides them across the counter.

“Can you put it on my tab?” Lexa asks. Emilio frowns and shakes his head.

“No, no. It’s on the house. You look like you’ve earned it.” He points a gnarled finger in the general direction of her bruised face. “Now, go get out of this heat.”

“Thank you, Emilio.” Lexa nods to him. She gathers up the sandwiches in her arms and backs her way out of the shop. Emilio waves a goodbye to her, fanning himself with a piece of unused sandwich wrapping paper. 

Back outside, the sun reintroduces itself. Aggressively. At least in Emilio’s, the heat had been accompanied by the smell of cooking food. Out here, the smell was one of cooking  _ people _ . In the few minutes she had spent in the shop, the temperature had to have ticked up a few degrees. There was no possible way it wasn’t at 90 by now. Sighing epically, Lexa forces her legs to carry her forward. 

The sidewalk is lined by poles, newspaper boxes, signs, and trash cans. Almost all of them are plastered in a variety of colorful stickers and flyers. Lexa often enjoys reading them whenever she’s walking around the neighborhood, as there is a constant fight for limited real estate. Today, there is a bright purple flyer advertising an open music night at the coffee shop on the corner of Crosby and Howard and a menu from a restaurant in Little Italy. Nothing is overtly eye-catching beyond that.

Lexa takes a right and feels some of the tension in her shoulders fall away. Just yards away from her is the rusty sign for Reyes’ Auto Shop. If it wasn’t painful to just walk, she would have ran the final distance. 

The garage is open and loud clangs are coming from within. Lexa forgoes the building’s door for just walking in straight through the garage. There are three cars inside, an ancient truck, a Camaro, and a rough-looking red sedan. To the far left, Miller, assistant mechanic of Reyes’ Auto Shop, is banging the dents out of a hub cap. Closer, a pair of legs, one clamped in a brace, sticks out from underneath the sedan. 

“Raven!” Lexa shouts over the noise. The left leg waggles in greeting. There’s a grunt and a clatter and then Raven Reyes comes rolling out from under the car, streaked with grease. 

“Miller! Take a break for a minute!” Raven calls. The clanging abruptly stops and Miller disappears into the side office. Raven wipes her hands on a rag (that isn’t even clean) and regards Lexa with squinted eyes.

“Are those Emilio’s sandwiches?” She asks. Lexa nods and holds one out to her. 

“It’s the usual.” Raven rips open the paper unceremoniously and takes a deep whiff of her food. Lexa stands still. It’s best to allow for a moment of pure, unbothered adulation before attempting to start a conversation with a Raven with Emilio’s in her hand.The mechanic moans into her first bite, eyes closed.

“You’re lucky you brought this,” She says around a mouthful of pulled pork, “Because I was not happy to hear about what you got up to last night.”

“Wait,” Lexa shakes her head, “You heard?”

“Yeah, from me.” The third sandwich is plucked from underneath Lexa’s arm before she can react. She spins to see who the culprit is, wincing when it pulls at her stitches.

“You.” She growls. Standing next to her is none other than Ground War AKA Octavia Blake AKA someone Lexa had quite a fucking problem with. 

“Hey.” Octavia smirks, unwrapping the sandwich. Lexa snatches it back.

“Raven, what the hell is she doing here?” She spits out.

“You are not the only person I do business with, Lexa.” Raven shrugs.

“I’m the only one who lives above your goddamn garage!” Lexa says, throwing up her free hand. Octavia has the nerve to laugh at her indignation, which only makes Lexa’s anger grow.

“You realize she left me in the hands of a civilian last night and didn’t even think--”

“Whoa, easy tiger.” Raven cuts her off, “I have already spent all morning yelling at her for making such a dumbass decision.”

Lexa glares at Octavia, whose face immediately drops its smirk and falls into something much more serious. While Clarke had handled the situation admirably, Octavia should have known better than to involve a civilian. Now, she and Octavia weren’t anywhere close to friends, but because they both worked with Raven, Lexa had supplied the fledgling vigilante with ground rules. One of the most important ones was not involving innocents in dangerous situations, which Octavia had promptly broken hours earlier.

“No, Raven. I don’t think she gets it.” Lexa snaps. “She could have gotten Clarke killed by sending her with me.”

“Hey, I didn’t owe you shit, but I still saved your life and ‘Clarke’ or whatever-her-name-is’s life last night.” Octavia fires back. Raven rolls her eyes and leans back against the hood of the sedan.

“I...you...” Lexa sputters. She knows that the decision that Octavia made, while risky and inexperienced, wasn’t the  _ worst _ . She knows it. There is no way Octavia could have gotten her to the hospital in full costume  _ and _ dealt with the Russians left behind at Yung Sun. It was humanly impossible. Plus, Lexa was the one who had dragged Clarke out of the art gallery in the first place. But, that didn’t mean she wasn’t mad about it. 

“Look,” She grinds out, “What you did was dumb....but, fine, yes, I appreciate it. Nobody got hurt, so I’m not going to have this fight with you. Today.” 

“Um, Lexa.  _ You _ got pretty hurt.” Raven points out. Octavia looks away, arms folded. 

“Nobody who  _ matters _ .” Lexa corrects herself. Ravens scowls at that and Octavia barks out a humorless laugh. 

“Well, Miss Martyr” Raven sighs, “I’m glad you’re in one piece.”

Octavia inclines her head slightly, as if to agree that, yes, it was a good thing that Lexa was still kicking, even if she didn’t want to admit it. It’s a small gesture, but it conveys minimum mutual understanding, and Lexa’s exhaustion won’t allow for any more fighting today, so she relaxes her shoulders and holds the sandwich out. Raven’s eyebrows shoot up in surprise, then settle into an expression of approval. Apprehension flashes in Octavia’s eyes, but she takes the peace offering for what it is.

“You owe Miller a sandwich now.” Lexa says. Any seriousness in Octavia immediately falls away and is replaced with her usual smirking rebellion. 

“Yeah, whatever.” Octavia saunters away, sandwich in hand, leaving Raven and Lexa alone. They’ve known each other for a year--basically an eternity compared to Octavia’s brief three months of existing on Lexa’s radar, so when Raven shakes her head tiredly, Lexa doesn’t immediately jump to the defensive.

“How did you get yourself in that situation?” Her friend asks.

“The usual. Russians, drug money, whatever the hell else those scumbags entertain themselves with.” 

“I mean specifically.” Raven is not one to back down from something. Ever. Lexa scuffs her boot on the ground and goes through the details in her head. Adrenaline had a way of making events seem either agonizingly long or blindingly short and, when coupled with pain and blood loss, that made for a messy memory. When she ironed out a coherent story in her head, it made it easier to tell Raven the important bits.

“I was staking out a possible Russian drug house when I realized I had shown up on the night they were moving product  _ out _ of that very house. It looked like cocaine and heroin mostly. So, I dropped in to bash some heads and make the Russians lose some profit. But, the townhouse was small and there wasn’t a lot of room for me to dodge a bullet in a tiny ass hallway with my arms around a guy’s neck. It grazed my side.”

“Let me see.” Raven commands. She pushes off the sedan and gently lifts the edge of Lexa’s sweatshirt up. A low hiss leaves her when she sees the damage.

“Jesus. You popped a stitch.” 

“I know, let me finish so I can go deal with it.” Lexa says, batting Raven’s hands away.

“Fine. Continue.”

“After I got shot, I took out the remaining guys in the house. But I got sloppy and forgot that there were four other guys waiting for the pick up outside the house. They didn’t see me right away, but when they did, they chased me, two on foot and two in a car. They were shooting at me and I had nowhere to go so I dove through the window of this random art gallery. They kept shooting, but I realized that there was a woman there. That was Clarke.”

“Ah,” Raven grins, “Your savior, right?.”

“Shut up and let me finish. So, when I landed in the gallery I had to get Clarke out. We ran out of there and a couple of blocks into Chinatown and into Yung Sun’s, but the Russians eventually found us, probably because they had a car.”

“And this is where Octavia came in and saved your lives.”

“After I had already taken out three of them, yes.” Lexa frowns. It wasn’t like she was chopped liver, even bleeding out. Raven holds out a hand for her to continue.

“Obviously, Octavia has told you what happen at Yung Sun’s and how she sent me and Clarke to the hospital in a trackable SUV. That’s how Quint found us. He’s some kind of Russian enforcer, so I assume they sent him after word got out that one of their operations had gone quiet. He showed up at the hospital after I got patched up, so we ran again, to a park. We tried to hide and Clarke kis---I mean, Quint and two grunts showed up, I beat the shit out of the two and Clarke knocked out Quint, the police came, and I brought Clarke home. The end.”

“Wait,” Raven says, “What were you going to say there? About Clarke?”

“Nothing.” Lexa grunts. Raven did  _ not  _ need to know that Lexa had kissed the woman she went on a bullet-filled run with. Nor did Lexa need to think about that at this time. No. No, no, no, no.

“Huh.” Raven squints suspiciously. “This Clarke seems like a badass.”

“She reacted very well under pressure.” No, no, no,  _ no. _

“Wow, that’s the closest thing to a compliment I’ve ever heard come out of your split lips.” Raven smirks. Lexa shifts awkwardly. This was not a conversation she needed to be having. 

“Look, I told you everything. I’m going to go eat my sandwich now.” Lexa brushes past Raven. She manages to get to the apartment stairs when Raven shouts to her.

“Hey, Lexa! Why’d you stay the night?” Lexa freezes in place and turns around to see the self-satisfied, suggestive grin plastered on Raven’s face.

“Safety, Raven.” She says and then, as an addition, “And fuck you.”

 

**3:30pm**

 

One Emilio’s sandwich and a hot shower later, Lexa is sitting uncomfortably on her bed, trying to apply a butterfly bandage to her popped stitch. Showering had been hell, as the combination of trying to not to get her stitches wet while washing the blood and sweat off of her body was maddening. No longer smelling like two day old trash was pleasant, but having to bend and twist to hold a towel over her wound did little to improve the state of her sore muscles. 

“Come on, you little...” It’s rough, but the bandage does the job. Lexa pulls her tank top down, groaning when the balls of stress twitch in her back. The air goes out of her and for the first time in eighteen hours, she allows all of that tension, that adrenaline, to bleed out of her in an invisible river and drip through the floor. There is nothing she would like to do more than just close her eyes...just for a second...

The buzz of her cell phone doesn’t allow her that freedom. A weary sigh tumbles from her lips. Whoever felt the need to contact her at this very moment was out to kill her. Painfully, Lexa pushes herself up from her bed, the familiar creak of its ancient springs biting at her ankles as she walks away from the one place she truly wants to be. 

Her phone is laying face down on her ‘kitchen table’, which is an old, dirty green diner table that Raven claims isn’t stolen. Stapled into the very surface of the table was a map of Manhattan, divided into territories based upon which gang controlled them. There were the Russians in Soho, the Irish in Hell’s Kitchen, the Cosa Nostra in Little Italy, the Yakuza in the Financial District, and the Triad in Chinatown. Each is color-coded and precisely lined, though there was consistent upheaval and battles for unclaimed neighbourhoods. Pins are stuck in specific areas, denoting anything from a base of operations to a pick up/drop off site. As she picks up her phone from the Lower East Side, Lexa flicks her finger over the pin of the townhouse she had cleared out the night before.

Momentarily, she wonders if it is Clarke making her phone buzz. That would be bad. At least, Lexa knows that _ logically _ that would be bad. A small part of her--one that is smashing fucking pots and pans together behind her eyes--desperately wants it to be Clarke. Maybe it was the bonding over life-threatening situations. People formed friendships over near-death experiences all the time, right? Running from mobsters definitely qualified as something bond worthy. 

But even as Lexa stares at her phone, she knows that it’s not just gratitude or solidarity that’s making her think about Clarke. No, it’s the way kissing her with bruised lips had felt and the way she had been speaking softly and calmly on the ride to the hospital, even though Lexa had been barely conscious enough to fully remember. It was the way she had held a gun with no intention to shoot Quint, the way she had been so gentle with Lexa’s side, the way it had felt to stand wrapped around her in the park, even though they barely knew each other. Those memories were heightened by adrenaline, sure, but they were also heightened by  _ Clarke _ .

She checks her phone. It’s not Clarke. On her screen is a text from Raven, telling her to go to sleep ‘immediately’.

“That’s what I was trying to do.” Lexa grumbles, strange disappointment taunting her brain. Inconsiderate mechanics. She lays the phone back down on the table, on silent this time. Not even God deserved to disturb her now.

  
  


**8:22am (One Week Later)**

 

“I just don’t see how you can dislike the Mets.” Octavia puffs out. Lexa throws a punch, which the smaller woman ducks fluidly. They dance for a moment and then Octavia lunges.

“Because I don’t like baseball.” Lexa blocks and counters. Right. Left. Kick.

“Raven told me you have two baseball hats, a Yankees one and a Dodgers one.” Octavia feints to the side and jabs at Lexa’s left. She rotates to avoid it.

“Why is Raven talking to you about my possessions?” Right. Kick. Right. Octavia spins and tries to catch her off balance. Right. Left.

“Because I asked if your heartlessness extended to sports teams.” Hook. Kick. Sweat is making the mat beneath their feet slick. Octavia is breathing heavily, clearly unused to having to fight hand to hand for an extended period of time. Lexa pushes her.

“I’m not heartless, I’m--”

“If you say ‘efficient’, I’m going to punch your stitches.” Octavia blocks her left arm, which Lexa follows with an unusually hard kick to the back of the leg. Bastard. She  _ was  _ going to say efficient.

“You’ve been avoiding my stitches this whole time.” Lexa says, “When you asked me to spar, I didn’t think you were going to take it easy.”

Annoyance flashes in Octavia’s eyes. She moves to send a particularly vicious strike to Lexa’s injured side. Except, it’s unfocused and sloppy, meaning that Lexa can easily take advantage of her opponent losing her center of gravity and bring Octavia down to the mat. Hard. The breath rushes out of the smaller woman in a gust. She curls inward and rolls onto her knees. Lexa watches her with a small smirk.

“You can shoot a gun like you were born to, but you need to work on your close quarters combat.” 

“What were you? A Navy fucking SEAL?” Octavia coughs, holding her side. 

“Something like that.” Lexa says. 

“Well, the fact that you just kicked my ass with week old stitches is unreal. Do you ever relax?” The mat squeaks when Octavia stiffly stands up. Lexa runs a light hand over her own side. It had been a difficult week. She had basically been restricted to walking and sitting, imprisoned. Raven had offered help, but it wasn’t like Lexa was the one crawling all over cars. Without being able to run or maneuver very well, she had also been sidelined from any peacekeeping in the streets, which meant a week of handing Raven tools when she asked and trying to do a two month old crossword that Miller had already started. It was beyond boring. 

“Are you going to go out tonight?” Octavia asks. She is mopping the sweat off of her arms and neck with one of Raven’s only clean rags.

“I may. Why?”  
“Because I’ve been out the past three nights and there is shit going down with the Triad.” Lexa frowns at this news. It was never a good sign to have unrest in Chinatown. The Triad had the loosest hierarchy out of all the syndicates in the city, meaning that it was nearly impossible to identify the difference between big players and chess pieces. From what Lexa had gathered, she knew that there was one central boss and three major lieutenants underneath him/her. But her intel ended there. If something was happening with the Triad, she had no idea how deep it went.

“What do you think it is?” She asks, striding over to Raven’s work bench. Her water bottle is there, warm from sitting in the morning sunlight, but it tastes heavenly after her first real workout in a week. 

“I don’t know.” Octavia shakes her head. “But I think it might have something to do with your jaunt through Chinatown the other night.”

“The Russians did fire guns on Triad territory.” Lexa nods.

“Yeah, but this seems more long game than just retaliation.” A pigeon flutters into the garage from one of the open doors. It pecks around for a few seconds before realizing there is nothing to be gained on the spotless floor, and flies off. Lexa watches it flap away, considering what Octavia had said. 

“I’ll see if I can find any info for you. Obviously your methods aren’t working.” She says. Her side is throbbing under her shirt. Challenging Octavia to hit her there had been a risk. Lexa recaps her bottle. There is little chance she can hit the information out of anybody in her current state, but her fists aren’t her only tool. Perhaps it was time to venture back into Chinatown, do a little groundwork. It would beat failing at pop culture crosswords. 

Octavia grumbles something about having to go to work (she had a  _ job? _ ) and throws a halfhearted farewell at Lexa. Her motorcycle is resting next to the Camaro, the fresh black paint glittering lightly. Lexa appraises it while Octavia clips her helmet on.

“I’ll contact you.” Comes muffled from the opaque visor The bike’s engine roars when Octavia jams the key in the ignition. She slides out of the garage and onto the street, crunching loose gravel under her thick wheels. Lexa watches her glide around the street corner, heedless of traffic. 

It’s not until Octavia has disappeared that the rigidity in Lexa’s spine melts down into the discomfort she was hiding. Her jaw clenches. She needed to heal faster. 

“Was that Octavia?” Raven’s voice comes from the front door. Lexa turns and sees her limping over. 

“Yeah, she wanted to spar.” Outside, a car horn blares from Crosby. More pigeons are landing on the sidewalk outside the garage. Raven brushes by Lexa to flick open one of her many toolboxes. 

“And you agreed?” She asks, pulling seven different, nameless tools from the bright orange box. Lexa snorts and shakes her head. 

“I haven’t sparred in a while.” 

“Yeah, but did you forget you had stitches?” The lid to the toolbox is flipped closed, leaving Lexa as the sole recipient of Raven’s attention. Her eyes flick incredulously to Lexa’s side. 

“No. I’m fine.” 

“Bullshit. I’ve said _ that _ enough in my life.” Raven points to the brace on her leg, which makes a surge of sympathy spike in Lexa’s chest. She opens her mouth to argue, but shuts it just as quickly. It wasn’t her place to make comments on injuries.

“I’m okay.” She says instead. This seems to settle Raven enough to allow her to go back to her work. The Camaro that’s been giving her trouble all week is now under the spotlight. Apparently, it has a strange issue with its IAC motor, whatever the fuck that means.

“Well, it’s good to see you and Octavia bonding.” Raven chuckles.

“Bonding? Please. She’s still an inexperienced glass cannon.” 

“‘Glass cannon’? Who the fuck are you?”

“It means she’s good for one intense hit and then she shatters.” That makes Raven laugh. She nods her head slightly. 

“That’s why I reinforced her suit. Can you hand me the combo wrench?” Raven points absent-mindedly to the toolbox again. “Anyway, she’s not as inexperienced as you think. She’s trying to do good out there, just like you.”

Lexa opens the toolbox and looks in. She has no idea what a combo wrench looks like. It takes her a second, but then she realizes that there is only one wrench left in the box. Relieved, she tosses it to Raven.

“I’m not running around with a Kevlar suit, three guns, and a  _ sword _ .” Lexa scoffs.

“Lexa.” Raven sighs, “You aren’t somehow superior because you refuse to protect yourself. If anything, Octavia knows better.” 

“You don’t know--”

“No, I do know. That’s bullet wound in you side is proof enough. You should have let me make you a suit when I first offered.” Frustrated, Lexa grips the end of the work bench. When they had first met, Raven hadn’t known about Lexa’s....nightly activities. She may never have found out either had Lexa not unknowingly walked into the garage one day with a few bullet holes through the side of her jacket. As it turned out, the mechanic she was renting an apartment from was also highly capable with Kevlar and very, very smart. Raven had made a few educated guesses--the bullet holes, Lexa’s odd hours, the sudden downtick in crime in their area--and confronted her about it. Only she and Emilio had ever been able to figure it out on their own. 

“I’m not Octavia.” Octavia’s introduction, on the other hand, had been much more abrupt. According to Raven, the younger woman had appeared in the garage one day saying that she had a few thousand dollars and very specific order. Though at first they had been wary, Octavia had apparently been referred by one of Raven’s old college friends, Harper. It also helped that not even a few weeks later, Lexa and Octavia had literally smashed into each other in the same gang brawl, Octavia looking almost unrecognizable in Raven’s fresh work. It wasn’t a perfect reveal either way but, with the truth out, they had all fallen into some kind of psuedo-working relationship, with the main rule being ‘Don’t Get In My Way’. It functioned well.

“Maybe you should both learn from each other.” Raven offers, which was not even on the borderline of advice Lexa wanted to hear. She was trained, conditioned, efficient. Octavia’s brand of gun-toting mayhem was unappealing at best.

“Careful, Raven. I might think you were favoring her over the person who pays you rent.” There is no answer from under the hood of the Camaro. Lexa takes that as an end to the conversation. She leaves Raven to her car and sets herself on a path back up to her apartment.  The metal stairs creak under her heavy steps, just like her muscles do. To add insult to injury, her air conditioning-less, tiny living space is rapidly rising in temperature. She’s about to go take a cold shower of relief when a bright burst on the screen of her phone catches her attention. 

**3 NEW MESSAGES**

**1-567-329-5644**

In Lexa’s experience, an unknown number is rarely good. It’s usually some bullshit scam or someone who can’t use a phone properly or unwanted attention, none of which she is in the mood for. She picks up the phone and taps out her password. What appears on the screen after is quite the surprise.

 

**1-567-329-5644 (8:14am): Hi**

**1-567-329-5644 (8:15am): This is Clarke**

**1-567-329-5644 (8:15am): I need your help**

 

Lexa’s pulse is up immediately, plans of how to get to Clarke’s apartment the fastest, what she would find there, and whether or not Clarke was actually in her apartment all flashing through her head. She has to cut her mind off just to type out a reply.

 

**Lexa (8:36am): Where are you? R u in trouble**

 

Shower forgotten, Lexa clutches her phone tighter in her hand. Five minutes. She’ll give it five minutes and then take off to Clarke’s apartment regardless of an answer. In the meantime, there are boots to get and jeans to find. There’s a second that she almost considers calling Octavia, is _about_ _to call Octavia_ , when her phone lights up again.

 

**1-567-329-5644 (8:42am): Oh! No, I’m not in any danger**

**1-567-329-5644 (8:42am): Sorry i didn’t mean help like that**

**Lexa (8:43am): Send me a picture of your face with your finger touching your nose so I know.**

 

The picture comes quickly. Lexa opens it and studies it. It’s Clarke, with her finger clearly touching her nose, looking apologetic. And pretty. But that wasn’t the point. Lexa breathes out a sigh of relief. She adds Clarke’s number to her phone all while grumbling about her own heart rate.

 

**Lexa (8:44am): I would prefer if you didn’t send such vague, threatening texts**

**Clarke (8:45am): My bad :(**

**Lexa (8:45am): What do you need help with?**

**Clarke (8:46am): Can I call you and explain?**

 

Lexa’s thumb hovers over her screen. She doesn’t like this. Her pulse is still up, probably a mixture of her reaction to Clarke’s fake danger and Clarke herself. It would be a lie to say she hadn’t thought about Clarke. The blonde had been traipsing through her dreams over the past week, usually surrounded by blood and bullets, but sometimes by soft skin and gray hoodies. Occasionally, she even broke through during the day, in unseeming tangents of thought. But Lexa knows, she  _ knows _ , when she’s playing with fire.

 

**Lexa (8:49am): Okay**

 

Apparently, her brain is feeling fireproof. She picks up the call before it even rings once.

“Hi, Lexa.” Clarke’s voice sounds different over the phone. Maybe it’s just because she isn’t being chased or shot at or exhausted. 

“Hello, Clarke.” 

“Sorry about that.”

“It’s okay.” Awkward silence rushes into the conversation like air into a balloon, inflating it with needless pressure. Clarke is clearly doing something on the other end of the line, as Lexa can hear ruffled sounds in the background. She shifts the phone to her other ear.

“What is it you need help with?” She asks. The ruffling stops briefly and the muffled scratch of Clarke jostling the phone replaces it. 

“My mother.” Comes the reply. Which...alright. That was not what was expected. 

“Look, Clarke--”

“She’s asking questions.” Oh. Lexa runs a hand over her sweaty hair. She had known going to the hospital would come back to bite her in the ass. No doctor worth their degree or salary would take the disappearance of one of their patients well, even less so if that patient was accompanied by the doctor’s  _ child _ .

“Shit.”

“Yeah, tell me about it.” Clarke groans, “I’ve been fending her off all week. She won’t let it go and she’s pissed. I, at least, just covered the payment with my insurance, but she lost it when we left.”

“That’s understandable. I’ll pay you back for the insurance.”

“No, no--”

“Clarke. I’m paying you back.” 

“Or,” Clarke says, “You can pay me back by meeting my mother with me.”

“What.” Of all the things that could be happening, of all the possible scenarios, why this? She had already been shot, for Christ’s sake. Lexa bites back a sigh. Screw the Russians and their bullets. Clarke seems to anticipate her reaction.

“Wait! I know how it sounds and I know you’re busy saving the world! Feel free to say no, I can make up a story. And I know you have your secret identity and you have no interest in my mother or me. I get it.” Clarke rushes out, “But if you could do this for just an hour, I will never, ever ask anything of you again.”

“Why is it so important to you that your mom not be mad?”

“Because she’s my mom, Lexa, and she thinks I’m in a gang.” Clarke says, with more jostling in the background. Lexa blows a breath out of her nose. Clarke saved her life, not once but twice, that was a fact. She owed her a debt. As uncomfortable as meeting Dr.Griffin a second time sounded, it was the least she could do for the woman who kept her from bleeding out or landing in a jail cell. 

“Alright.” She says. There’s a clatter from Clarke’s end and a distant burst of swears, and then her voice comes back at full volume again.

“Thank you! Jesus, I can’t believe you said yes.”

“I owe you.” Lexa says, grinning slightly to herself at the way Clarke’s voice brightened. The background noise stops for a moment, just long enough for Lexa to hear Clarke give directions to somebody. 

“Yeah, yeah....just back it into place.”

“Busy?” Lexa asks.

“Yep. I just got a new window and decorations for the gallery.”

“Ah. Sorry about that, too.”

“It’s okay, honestly. The new one’s better. You’ll see it tonight.” Tonight? Lexa looks at the ancient clock on her wall. Digging into the Triad and helping Clarke is going to put her in a time crunch. She bites her lip.

“Tonight? As in, tonight-tonight?”

“Yes,” Clarke says, “It’s my gallery’s re-opening.”

“I see.”

“If you can’t make it, Lexa--”

“No! No. I can make it. What do I need to wear?”

“Anything without blood on it.” Clarke laughs. Lexa rolls her eyes and glances down at her map. She runs her fingers across street names until she comes up to the general location of Clarke’s gallery. It would be easy to get to there from Chinatown. 

“Hm, I might have one or two things.” 

“Hopefully you do. I told my mom you’re a boxer, to explain your bruises, but fresh blood would be hard to forgive.” A boxer. Huh. Lexa looks at the fading bruises on her arms and hands. It wasn’t all that far from the truth--though, boxing was far more tame than what she was capable of.

“So, I’m a boxer. Is my name still Leslie?”

“Obviously. And we met getting...I don’t know, coffee?”

“No, how about sandwiches? At Emilio’s? That’s a good place.”

“I never been. But alright.” There’s another voice speaking to Clarke on the other line, “I have to go, but if you can get here for 8pm, we can iron out the details of our fake relationship.” 

“Super. I’ll see you then, Clarke.” Lexa says, fighting off another grin.

“See you, Lexa. Thank you again.” With that, the call clicks off, leaving Lexa to process what she had just signed herself up for. It wasn’t a mission, or an assignment, or a directive. If anything, it was a distraction. Yet, there was no one giving her orders right now and there hadn’t been for almost two years. There was no purpose to her existence in the city beyond dealing with criminals. So, fulfilling a debt--though it was a distraction--couldn’t do much harm.

Lexa looks back at her map. Chinatown sticks out in bright purple. Her agreement with Clarke doesn’t matter at the moment, anyways. There is information to be gathered on the Triad, and she’s running out of hours to do it.

 

**6:45pm**

 

Buildings in Chinatown are cramped, some more than others, and none more so than the stuffy bar Lexa is currently sitting in. She has her Yankees hat pulled low over her eyes and a glass of untouched whiskey. The room is lit by a few lights and a flickering Budweiser sign, but half of the brightness is choked out by the haze of smoke drifting at just about eye level. It smells strongly of tobacco, like the smoke has permeated the wood of the bar, the floor, and the walls. It turns her stomach slightly, but sticking her nose into false sips of her whiskey helps. 

As to why she’s in the Red Dragon, well, that was the payoff of an afternoon of scouting and a brief phone call with Octavia. According to what she had learned (and what Octavia verified), the Red Dragon was a popular spot for lower-level Triad members and other criminals, likely due to its cheap booze and seedy atmosphere. 

It was a packed house, that was for sure. There are tables of men (of various races, but predominantly East Asian) and each and every one of them seems to be smoking something and drinking something else. The lonely bartender is pouring drinks for regulars without even asking what they want and, from what Lexa can see, he is also passing them freshly rolled cigarrillos. She sticks her nose in her whiskey again. This one room was the reason for second-hand smoke advertisements everywhere.

There are no windows in the bar, save for a tiny square of glass on the door that is doing very little to allow the fading sunlight in. Lexa runs her hand across the edge of her glass. She had forgotten just how boring waiting for a target was. Minutes tick by. There are no clocks in the bar and she has no desire to pull her phone out and check the time. Distorted conversations come and go around her ears, but nothing terribly interesting.

She peeks over her shoulder to one of the tables in the back. A small group is seated around the table, playing some kind of card game. It’s impossible to tell which of them are Triad or not. Thankfully, that doesn’t matter. Slouched in his chair is one of the few white guys in the bar and, from the looks of it, he is currently being reamed for all of his money. 

“Fuck, Min, I know, I know.” The guys throws his hands up as more of his chips are being swept across the table to one of the other men. An arrogant smile is stuck on his face, but his eyes dart around to every corner of the room. A total of four chips are left in front of him. 

Lexa takes a real sip of her whiskey and crinkles her nose at the taste. New cards are dealt around the table and for some reason the guy stays in the game. Annoyance bubbles up. She’s been waiting for this fool to lose all of his money for an hour and a half. Her patience is running thin. 

The game circulates around the table, with each player spending minutes deliberating on their moves. One man folds, one man doubles down, others play conservative. Her target elects to bet all four of his chips. Some of his companions laugh at him, but that arrogant smile stays in place. 

After everyone has taken their turn, as anyone could predict, her guy loses his chips. He’s out, but he’s not paying up. The conversation at the table quickly turns aggressive. Her target has no real money on him, that’s clear. He throws his hands up a second time and shakes his head. The man he had called Min goes to grab him, but he ducks underneath it. The whole group looks poised for a fight. Streams of words are tumbling out of the guy’s mouth, placating lies most likely. Lexa fights the urge to laugh at him. 

“You guys will get your money, trust me.” He says as he starts to back up, hands still up. The men at the table stay seated, with the exception of Min, who stands up to flip the guy off and shout at him.

“You better fucking get it, Murphy.”

“Min, it’s me! I’ll get your money. No worries, right?” Murphy has managed to back his way at least fifteen feet away from the table and the increasingly angry patrons there. They all watch him go, each having stopped smoking just to nail Murphy with hateful glares. When he has made it almost to Lexa, he turns around and waves over his shoulder.

“Fucking idiots.” He whispers to himself as he passes. Lexa smiles. Ah, she really couldn’t have picked a better target. She lets him get to the door before she gets up from the bar. The whiskey stays where it is. 

Murphy stumbles out into the early night air far more drunk that someone should be before midnight. He stands on the sidewalk and fumbles for his phone in the pocket of his dirty jacket. It’s all too easy to hook his arm between hers and drag him into a side alley. He croaks when she does it and tries to run away, but he’s uncoordinated and sloppy. He’s in a chokehold before he knows what’s happening.

“Whoa, whoa! What the fuck!” Lexa jams the crook of her elbow further into his throat. Wildly, he thrashes against her. She tries not to grimace when flecks of his spit land on her hand. 

“Calm down.” She growls. When he doesn’t, she puts more pressure on his windpipe. There’s a bit of height difference, so it’s harder than usual, but it does the job. Murphy stops struggling and plants his feet on the ground, hands tight around Lexa’s arm. 

“Who the fuck are you?” He gasps.

“A person who needs answers.”

“You’re a chick? Listen, if this is about--”

“Can you shut the fuck up for three seconds and calm down?” Lexa repeats. “I’m not going to hurt you if I don’t have to.” 

Murphy thrashes one more time, as if to test if she was shitting him. She’s not. Quickly, Lexa reverses her hold, twists his left arm behind his back, and drives him across the alley and into the wall on the other side. He grunts in pain when his chest hits the brick. 

“Fine. Fine.” He says, “I’m calm. I’m fucking breezy.”

“Good. I have questions. First, I assume you are John Murphy?”

“Who’s asking?”

“Answer the goddamn question.” 

“Fuck, fine. Maybe I am.” 

“And do you buy drugs from the Triad?” 

“I don’t disclose business with--fucking  _ Jesus _ !” Murphy chokes out. Lexa has his arm in a very, very uncomfortable position. She pushes in further backward. 

“If you don’t give me a simple answer, your shoulder is getting dislocated.” She says. 

“Listen, I--”  _ Snap _ . Murphy howls when his bone pops out of its socket. He tries to jerk away but only manages to push himself further into the brick. It’s risky to let him make all of this noise, but hopefully the sounds of the city will drown out him out. And yet....hope isn’t enough to go on. Lexa sighs. She grips his dangling arm and, without warning, shoves it upward. It relocates easily. He shouts again, more in relief this time. 

“You going to answer me now?” Lexa asks. 

“Yes.”

“Excellent. Now, do you buy product from the Triad?”

“Yes.” Murphy says. “I buy and sell.”

“How deep in the organization are you?”

“Are you some kind of cop--ah, hey, hey, I’m just asking!” Murphy fails his free hand when Lexa goes for his shoulder a second time, “I’m basically an outsider to them.”

“Is that the truth?”

“Yes!”

“Do you have any information on what is going on with the Triad right now?” Lexa presses. John Murphy was one of her only leads. If he didn’t know what was going on, this whole thing would be a waste. She pushes him again.

“I don’t know anything!” He yelps, “I just sell drugs, okay?”

“If you’re lying...”

“I’m telling the goddamn truth!” Murphy’s voice is hitting a higher pitch than before. Lexa clenches a fist. She should have known that an uninitiated dealer would be a complete waste of time. She has no trust in John Murphy, but he seemed to be a big fan of saving his own skin. If he had had information, bodily harm would have gotten it out of him pretty quickly. 

“Okay. Thanks for your time.” Lexa pulls him off of the wall and spins him toward the back of the alley. Then, her boot meets the small of his back and sends him tumbling forward. He splashes through a small puddle and nearly lands face first on the pavement. She is out of the alley before he can even get a glimpse of her. 

So, the Red Dragon had been a bust, at least tonight. Lexa pulls her phone out of her pocket as she walks. There are no texts or calls. She almost puts it back in her pocket before the time blinking back at her registers. It’s almost 8pm. 

“Shit.” She didn’t have much time to make it to Clarke’s gallery. Picking her pace up to a jog, Lexa tries to hail a cab. The streets are busy tonight. Yellow cars flash by her in increasingly frustrating numbers. It takes a combination of waving her arms and walking on the road to finally get one to pull over and let her in. She gives him the address and slaps a ten dollar bill down on the dashboard as incentive to hurry. She had places to be. 


	2. Don't You Sip Your Wine At Me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is a bit short because I had exams, but let's roll with it anyway

**8:06pm**

 

For most people, stress manifests itself in sweating hands, spiking temperature, and agitation--the active word in that sentence being ‘ _ most’ _ . Stress had a different kind of effect on Clarke. It made her eerily calm. In college, when her classmates were crumpled in balls in the hallway, Clarke was stepping over them with the coolness of a lioness on the hunt. Without a sip of coffee, she had already surpassed a level of brutal single-mindedness, one that allowed her to walk into her exams without a shake of a hand. Her old roommate, Maya, had told her it was like watching a waterfall freeze over and harden into spears of ice. 

Being shot at had really strained the limit of her stress-managing abilities, like, _ really _ . Having to deal with the fallout of Lexa’s hospital visit had been a walk in the park comparatively, probably because her insurance had all but cleared everything financial up. She had even snagged Lexa’s ruined jacket from the lost and found bin, like a spy swapping out evidence. It was badass. And yet, for all that, there was one thing that was threatening to send her over the edge: Her mother. 

Abby had been absolutely seething when she found out that her daughter had ditched out of the hospital with a gunshot victim. She had been even angrier when Clarke had lied and said that ‘Leslie’ had felt the deep need to return to the scene of the shooting to help the owners of Yung Sun and anyone else caught in the crossfire. A crock of bullshit, obviously, but it seemed like the safest option at the time--and one she could easily get Lexa to accept as their story. That is,  _ if  _ Lexa ever showed up. 

See, Clarke had a problem. It was a past 8pm and Lexa was nowhere to be seen. Not to mention, in absolutely  _ fucking _ superb fashion, Abby Griffin had decided to arrive to the gallery opening a whole  _ hour _ early. 

“These new decorations are much better than your old ones.” Her mother says, at her side. Clarke nods and smiles, more focused on watching the caterers finish up and cursing herself for thinking that she would have time to brief Lexa without her terminally punctual mother arriving to screw her plans. Clarke loves her mother, that is a fact, but at the moment she’s making her daughter twitch with nervousness. 

“Excuse me,” Clarke calls to the head caterer, “Will those be kept warm? I don’t know if everyone is going to want to eat as soon as they arrive.”

The short, heavily-freckled woman gives her a thumbs up from the food tables. Clarke sighs. So, this is what she’s come to: Micromanaging the caterers. Abby sips from a wine glass, completely oblivious to Clarke’s discomfort. Wherever the hell Lexa is--

The door to the gallery bursts open. Truth be told, it’s a lot more surreal to watch Lexa simply walk in through the front door rather than come crashing through the window. Less bullets, less glass, and a whole lot more time for Clarke to take in the sight of Lexa herself, not bloody or sweaty, walking with a measured stride and steady gaze. She’s wearing a baseball cap, but her eyes very clearly scan the room once and lock onto Clarke. And then, when they also register Abby standing right there, that confident walk falters for a moment. It seems that even vigilantes feel fear.

“Ah, here she is.” Abby whispers, “She looks much better when she’s not on my operating table. Or abandoning medical care.”

“Mom!” Clarke hisses. Lexa slides between a caterer and a sculpture display, with a look on her face that is oscillating between betrayal, confusion, and forced blankness. Her hands fly behind her back as she walks and suddenly she’s somehow even more rigid than before. Clarke clenches her own hands. 

“Leslie!” She shouts and hopefully her voice doesn’t crack like she is imagining it will. Lexa grins...uh,  _ grimaces _ and steps towards Clarke’s other side. But before she can, Clarke reaches for her arm and redirects her so that they are both facing Abby, who is still sipping her wine in the most suspicious way possible. 

“Mom, this is Leslie.” 

“We’ve met. She was bleeding.” Abby says curtly. Clarke gulps and tightens her grip on Lexa’s wrist. Lexa grunts and gives a slight shake of her hand. Upon glancing down, Clarke notices that Lexa’s knuckles are red and raw. Her face is still healing too, though the blacks and blues have calmed to fading purples and yellows. Quickly, she loosens her hold.

“Hello, Mrs.Griffin. I just wanted to thank you for saving my--”

“You don’t need to thank me, it’s my job.”

“Ah,” Lexa stutters, “I, uh--”

“We both appreciate it, mom. I mean, I’ve already said it, but we, as a couple, truly do.” Clarke covers for her. This is going so poorly she wants to curl up in the corner and disappear. Her mother is staring at the bruises on Lexa’s face like they personally offend her. Lexa is maintaining eye contact, but it’s clear she is off balance in this conversation. 

“Why did you run out of the hospital?” Abby asks. Oh, good. Great. Her mother is really going right for the jugular tonight, that’s for sure. 

“Mom! I told you--”

“I want to hear it from Leslie.” Clarke’s heart rattles in her chest. There is no way that Lexa will be able to cohesively follow her lie, not without even knowing what it was. She’s about to cut in when Lexa opens her mouth.

“What Clarke told you was the truth, Mrs.Griffin. I left for the exact reasons she said I left.” Well, damn. Now  _ that _ was some beautiful deflection. Clarke takes the opportunity when it’s given.

“Yeah, mom. I told you, she wanted to make sure everything was okay at Yung Sun’s.” Lexa squeezes Clarke’s hand slightly, though whether it was in approval of the lie or a cry for help is up in the air. Abby still doesn’t look happy.

“Do you realize that you put my daughter in danger by bringing her back to the scene of a shooting?” Abby presses. 

“I didn’t want Clarke to come with me. Trust me, Mrs.Griffin, your daughter’s safety is my primary concern at all times.” That....actually wasn’t far from the truth. Not that Lexa always put Clarke first--because they barely knew each other--but that Lexa had tried to leave Clarke in the hospital. She had almost forgotten that.

“So, I guess I have to believe that what happened to you had nothing to do with Clarke’s gallery being vandalized?” Fuck! She really had forgotten about that. There had never been an explanation as to why she was ‘re-opening’ the gallery with a new window and a spackled wall. 

“What?” Clarke squeaks, “No! We weren’t even here. That’s--that’s how it got vandalized!”

“I was furious when I heard.” Lexa adds, and it’s clear she’s reaching to help Clarke cover, but it makes her want to laugh because of how offbeat it sounds, like Lexa was making an inside joke. Lexa. Making, like, a real, live  _ joke _ . 

Abby frowns again and Clarke is honestly surprised that her mother has any wine left in her glass. This isn’t at all how she planned to smooth things over. Abby was smart, not just because she was a doctor, but because she had an intrinsic ability to read into people and ferret out the things they were hiding. It makes Clarke think of the miniscule dots of Lexa’s blood worked into the wood behind the counter and the fully loaded gun sitting in her kitchen drawer. Shit! She should have put more thought into this. This whole idea may have been a mistake.

“Mom, you don’t need to interrogate Leslie. She was a victim, not a perpetrator. It’s not fair.” Clarke says, hoping to end the whole interaction as soon as possible. Lexa tenses beside her. She allows herself a sly glance to the side that reveals Lexa looking the most uncomfortable she’s been all night, even under Abby’s questioning. Her mother doesn’t notice this subtle change--or maybe she does and that sells the lie--because Abby finally lowers the wine glass and shakes her tawny hair over one shoulder.

“I--you’re right. My apologies, Leslie. I just want my daughter to be safe.” Oh, thank God. It’s not a  _ nice _ apology per se, because her mother still looks displeased, but it’s better than the Spanish Inquisition ft. Abby Griffin. Clarke lets out a quiet breath of relief and feels Lexa shift slightly as well. 

“Thanks, Mom.” A weird silence quickly invades their space, broken only by the light clanging of the caterers finishing their set up. Lexa is standing so rigidly she may as well be a statue on display...not she wouldn’t be a beautiful ( _ stunning _ ) piece....but, that wasn’t here nor there. Looking at her under real lights--not too-white hospital bulbs or hazy orange street lamps--is just different, Clarke supposes. Abby, too, has her eyes on Lexa, but perhaps more for the purpose inspecting the bruises dotting her face.

“How did you get those, Leslie?” Abby asks, waving a finger.

“Boxing,” Lexa answers, “I found myself in a match I wasn’t quite prepared for.”

“I see.” Abby grimaces. This peace was tenuous, that was clear. They need to make a break for it, and fast. Clarke reaches for Lexa’s clasped hands and forces one of her own in between them. Surprised, Lexa’s hand goes limp, and then tightens around her fingers. 

“If you’ll excuse us for one second, Mom, I want to show Leslie the new, uh, pieces before actual guests arrive.” Without even waiting for her mother to answer, Clarke tugs Lexa away and towards the back room. The caterers pay them no mind as they pass, Clarke almost at a jog. She pushes Lexa through the door and shuts it behind them quickly, peering out the tiny window to where her mother is now taking a phone call.

“Holy shit.” She groans. 

“I don’t think your mom likes me.” Lexa says. Clarke spins on her and throws her hands in the air.

“I don’t know why I thought this would be a good idea!” She snaps, “If anything, this is worse than when I told her I wasn’t going to med school.”

“She seemed pretty calm to me.” 

“She’s not. She doesn’t think you’re good enough for me and she doesn’t like that you’re covered in bruises.”

“Well, she’s not wrong. But that doesn’t mean she’s going to guess what really happened.” Lexa shrugs. Clarke stops her hand waving and blinks.

“Not wrong--?” She frowns, before catching herself, “I--you--you know what, it doesn’t matter. You’re right. She’s not going to guess the truth. It’s too far-fetched.” 

“You know we could have come to this conclusion over the phone.” Lexa smirks as she leans against one of the shelves. She’s got a small quirk on her lips, but it doesn’t quite reach her eyes. Clarke sags against the door.

“Yeah,” She sighs, “Yeah, I’m sorry. I know you were probably doing something important tonight.”

Clarke’s eyes fall on the slight redness to Lexa’s knuckles and palm. They look barely scraped, nothing like their previous meeting, but they make her wonder as to what Lexa had been up to prior to this slippery slope. 

“It wasn’t.” Lexa shakes her head, pushing her hands behind her back again, “And I agreed to this, Clarke. I owe you this.”

“You owe me?” Clarke chuckles, “I mean, I think we pretty much evened out that night.”

“You saved my life. Twice.” Lexa states simply, “The least I could do is help you with your mother.”

“You know I was joking about paying me back, right?”

“Regardless.” 

“You really take this ‘hero’ thing seriously. Helping out damsels in distress.” Clarke snorts. Lexa’s face darkens. She looks away, jaw tight.

“I’m not a hero, Clarke.”

Clarke opens her mouth to answer, to  _ refute _ that ridiculous statement, before pausing. Could she really argue with Lexa on this? It wasn’t as if she was privy to the vigilante’s morals, if Lexa even had any. Yet, what Clarke had seen from her that night--blood and all--she felt resonate in her chest as something inherent  _ good _ . Something right.

“We should go back out.” Lexa continues, oblivious to Clarke’s thoughts, “Or your mother will find a more innapropriate reason to dislike me.” 

“Oh.” Clarke feels heat rush to her cheeks, “Right.”

Her hand slips uselessly against the handle of the door several times before she actually turns around to get a real hold of it. Lexa moves in behind her. The stillness about her, now that she’s not bleeding or fighting, is disconcerting. Each and every movement seemed controlled, coiled perhaps, but lacking the adrenaline-infused energy they had the last time there were in the gallery together. 

The door swings open with a creak, revealing that guests were arriving. Abby was talking to a man with thick dark hair and more people were milling around the food tables and taking in the art. Lexa stays at her back, which for some reason takes the edge off of the spike of nervousness that comes with the new arrivals. Abby’s eyes break away from the man she is talking to and lock onto Clarke and Lexa. 

“If you want to leave, you can.” Clarke whispers. Lexa shakes her head.

“It’s okay, I told you I would be here. Here I am.”

“Alright then,” Clarke says, squaring her shoulders, “Here we go.”

 

**10:45pm**

 

Gallery reopenings weren’t like an average party. There was a terrible lack of hard alcohol, no music aside from what could be described as ‘tasteful background violins’, and very little chance of anyone doing a kegstand. In reality, they featured middle-aged people looking to drink wine and comment on paintings, all while hoping that there would be a discount on said paintings.

But Clarke wasn’t giving any discounts. In fact every time she regaled her guests with the story of how she discovered the smashed window and bullet holes, they looked at the surviving art with interested eyes--because who wouldn’t want a painting that survived attempted vandalization? It would be a great talking piece for any discerning buyer’s home.  

Simply by ebbing and flowing between groups of guests, Clarke had managed to sell three paintings, with a fourth waiting in the wings. She may have been able to do more, though, had her attention not been split down the middle by subtly watching Lexa out of the corner of her eye. As soon as guests started arriving, Lexa had faded into the background like a wraith, keeping a decided distance from Abby at all times. She would appear in Clarke’s periphery off and on, almost a shadow, and then disappear once again. A few times she even exchanged Clarke’s empty wine glass without a word. It was fascinating and--to be absolutely truthful--far more interesting than selling paintings to people. 

As of the moment, Lexa was studying one of the largest pieces in the gallery. Clarke could see her over the shoulder of the man discussing some sculpture that Clarke had agreed to show but hadn’t really liked. He seemed very adamant about understanding the ‘artist’s original intent’, which was unfortunate for him because she couldn’t remember the name of the guy who had made the sculpture in the face of watching Lexa tap two fingers right under the base of her jaw. The painting she was looking at was actually Clarke’s, one that took hints from Van Gogh and Louise McNaught.

“I truly feel his intent must be...discovered,” Clarke smiles at the man, “Please let me know if you need anything.”

She leaves him squinting at his possible purchase (which he’ll buy to reuse that line) and makes her way over to Lexa for the first time in almost two hours. The night is winding down, most people have already bought art or drank enough wine to need to call a cab. That makes approaching Lexa feel more private, less like they are under the social gaze of the party.

“Hey.” She says, tapping Lexa’s shoulder. The other woman’s eyes slide sideways and small grin touches her lips.

“Hi. Come for more wine?”

“No. But thanks for doing that. You’re really stealthy about slipping me alcohol. I could have used that in high school.” 

“I just didn’t want you to lose focus on selling all of your art.” Lexa says, turning her gaze back to the painting, “This one is yours?”

“Yeah,” Clarke nods, “It’s called ‘From The Sky’.”

“It’s beautiful. Stunning, actually.” Lexa says, and Clarke leans forward on her toes and blushes. People had been telling her her work was beautiful all night, but Lexa saying it felt different, in a nervous, but not entirely bad way. 

“This is one of my favorites that I’ve done.”

“I can see why.” Standing next to Lexa and looking at her own painting is...well, it’s not like trying to sell to a customer. It’s like looking at the painting with new eyes, really. It makes Clarke look more closely at the deep blues she had agonized over for hours, the tiny, sparkling stars that had made her wrist ache, and the regal stag standing underneath all that that had flowed so easily from her paintbrush. Usually when she finished a piece, she didn’t really give it all the much attention beyond potentially moving it to the gallery, probably because of how burnt out she felt on its completion. But looking at ‘From The Sky’ again with Lexa, months after its completion, has Clarke feeling a burst of pride. And it makes her notice that they aren’t far from where Lexa had smacked into the ground after hurtling through the window. 

“That’s about where you landed.” Clarke says under her breath. Her words break the smooth look of concentration on Lexa’s face and warp it into a frown. Clarke immediately regrets saying anything.

“I’m truly sorry.” Lexa says, eyes tracing the now glass-less floor. Her hand leaves her throat and clasps behind her back, like it had been in front of Abby. This time, instead of forcing her way in, Clarke reaches a hand out and lets it hang in mid air.

“You don’t have to apologize. Everything turned out okay.” Lexa stares at her hand like she’s never seen it, never had it fisted around a stolen sweatshirt in a park in the middle of the night. She reaches out in turn and gentle pushes Clarke’s fingers back down to her side. 

“That’s true. But it may not have.” She says quietly, softly. This whole night had been softer and quieter than the night they met. A few more glasses of wine and Clarke may have been able to convince herself that Lexa really was her normal, boxer girlfriend and not a vigilante with bruises on her face and scars on her knuckles. But the odd thing (the scary thing, the thing she  _ shouldn’t  _ think) was that she maybe didn’t really want to convince herself of that at all. 

“Downer.” Clarke mutters, desperate to reroute her mind and this conversation. Lexa rolls her eyes and shifts her weight, signalling the she too was keen to avoid some risky waters. That’s good, because Clarke can hear the telltale click of her mother’s heels coming in fast.

“Clarke,” Her mother calls, “That man over there is trying to buy that...cat sculpture...and nearly everyone else is leaving for the night.”

“Oh, great! Tell him I’ll be right with him.” Thankfully, Abby gets the unspoken request for another private second with Lexa, even if the slant of her eyes doesn’t give Lexa all that much credit. 

“I guess that means it’s about time for me to leave as well.” Lexa says, backing away from the painting. Her legs are long, and those few steps distance her from Clarke far more quickly than preferable. 

“Hey,” Clarke says, following her steps, “You don’t need to do a cloak and dagger disappearance. Let me walk you out.”

“You have a customer--”

“And you are doing me a huge favor. Come on.” Clarke holds out her hand, fully expecting Lexa to reject it and walk past her or evaporate in a plume of smoke now that their strange bargain has come to an end. But she doesn’t. Instead, surprisingly, she takes the offerer hand and allows herself to be led towards the door. It’s an act (yeah, an act) for her mother, that’s all, but it reminds Clarke of Lexa’s hand tight around hers, on the run from a bunch of gang members. 

As her heels clack on the wood, Clarke prays that Lexa can’t feel her pulse, not when it’s steadily rising at the thought that this may be the last time she sees this mysterious woman. She was no expert on vigilantes, but it seemed clear that Lexa knew what she was doing--could drop of the face of the earth, blend into a crowd and never be seen again. It makes her heart flutter nervously, uncomfortably. 

They make it to the door faster than Clarke would like. She holds it open for Lexa to slide through before following her out. The night air is sticky, humid, and likely foretelling rain on the horizon. 

“Thank you for a nice night.” Lexa says. She adjusts her hat while Clarke opens and closes her mouth like a fool, a complete fucking fool who can’t speak English.

“Thank you,” She stutters out, “You didn’t have to do this and I...I don’t know. Thank you.”

“I gave you my number for if you ever needed help. You did.” Lexa shrugs.

“I think you meant it for something more drastic than my mom.” Clarke laughs.

“Maybe I did. That doesn’t mean I’m upset you called.” God, what was she....how was she supposed to respond to that? Everything Lexa said was so specific, so  _ weighted _ , just like her movements. Even if she didn’t mean for everything she said to sound the way it did, Clarke still felt her skin tingle with each sentence. Which was ridiculous. 

“Well, uh, I guess this is it.” 

“I guess it is.”

“It’s not like vigilantes do brunch, haha, right?” Clarke says, looking at her feet. 

“Right.” Lexa mumbles and, fuck it, that is not how Clarke Griffin says goodbye. Uncaring of how it looks, she surges forward and wraps her arms tight around Lexa’s tense shoulders, burying her nose into the pine wood smell of of her hair. With heels on, their heights even out, but Lexa feels just as enveloping as in the park. She’s warm and solid feeling, even though her collarbones poke at Clarke’s chest. It takes an agonizing moment, but eventually Lexa gingerly returns the hug, like she’s afraid of what will happen if she squeezes too tight.

“Don’t get yourself killed.” Clarke whispers. She feels rather than sees Lexa swallow and tighten her grip ever so slightly. 

“No promises.” Lexa laughs breathlessly. Oh, and wouldn’t it be nice to make her promise. But Clarke can’t do that. She doesn’t have the right to. Instead, she pushes a selfish inch closer and then steps away entirely, allowing the thick night air to rush into the space between them like a necessary barrier. 

“Have a nice night, Lexa.”

“Same to you, Clarke.”

  
  


**11:30pm**

 

It takes double the time to close up the gallery with her mother hovering around trying to  _ clean _ , but Clarke gets it done. She sells the cat sculpture, thanks the caterers, puts everything back in its place, even as her mother trails behind her adjusting things in the minute ways that mothers do. Eventually though, Abby does leave, citing an early shift in the morning.

“I’m proud of you, Clarke.” She says before she steps out the door and suddenly the stress that had been clinging to Clarke’s shoulders like weighty, choking cloak falls away. She hugs her mother before she can get out of the building completely.

“I love you.” 

“I love you too, sweetheart.” Abby rubs a small circle into her daughter’s back. Two hugs in one night is a lot for Clarke, truly. She’s not....well, fuck, it’s not like she’s not affectionate, but she’s not exactly a ‘hugger’ either. Perhaps the stress and success of the night were doing something to her hormones.

Abby breaks away with a smile and a promise to talk in the morning. She hails a cab with ease, which is a reminder of how her mother has never seemed to be affected by the average hassles of a city dweller. Clarke shakes her head as the cab drives off and leans to the side of the wall to flick the last remaining lights off and turn the security system on. That too was an addition to the Post-Lexa period of her life. 

She locks the door behind herself once she’s outside. There is an option to call a cab, maybe an Uber, but there is a kind of bittersweet, nervous energy tapping at the back of her skull, kind of like when she graduated high school and didn’t have any idea what different paths life would take her one. She certainly didn’t imagine anything so bizarre as the one she was on.

Cab or no cab, it didn’t matter, because Clarke’s feet are already carrying her in the direction of home. Street names pass without much recognition beyond a sense of familiarity. A couple walk by, and then a woman with a dog. It was nice to be lost in thought, to just let her body do the work while her mind wandered to the next few days and what kind of shipping arrangements she would have to organize to make sure everyone who bought art recieved it quickly. If there are the soft scratches of footsteps behind her, she doesn’t notice.

Her apartment building door nearly smacks her in the face when she arrives, as one of her neighbors scurries out onto the sidewalk and beelines for the convenience store across the street. It’s probably old Edith from 3B, off to get some late night smokes.

Clarke checks her phone on the way up the stairs and opens up her contact listen just to stare at the list of names. Half the people in there she couldn’t even remember meeting. Lexa’s contact on the other hand, that one sticks out like a bug bite begging to be scratched. It’s right  _ there _ . She closes the list before her tired mind can get the better of her. 

Her apartment door always sticks when it’s first opens, which had been hell trying to get an injured Lexa through, but once she’s inside and  _ home _ at last, Clarke lets out an exhausted sigh. Wearily she tosses her phone on the kitchen counter and leans back against it. Lexa’s note is resting, folded, right where she had left it. Plus, (how could she forget?) there’s still a gun in her drawer. Carefully--even though it’s a _ gun _ and not a  _ bomb _ \--she eases her drawer open. All week she’d been avoiding this specific drawer, for fear that the weapon inside would come to life and leap out. And, goddamnit, she had fucking  _ meant _ to remind Lexa that she had encouraged her to just hang onto a Russian mobster’s loaded firearm. What was an art gallery owner supposed to do with a gun? Paint a still life of it?

Clarke pulls the gun from the drawer with clenched teeth. A quick session with Google had told her where the safety was, how to reload it, was all the individual pieces did. She didn’t feel qualified in the slightest, but it felt much better to known whether or not the safety was on.

She’s just thumbing over the cool metal when a muted thump echoes in from outside. Instinctively, Clarke crouches down and squeezes the grip of the gun. Her apartment is still mostly dark, but the lights from the street below illuminate the fire escape outside her window just enough to catch a quick flash of black. Her kitchen island is mostly blocking her from the windows view, but she still crawls backward to put more distance between herself and the window.

It could be Lexa. Maybe she had managed to get shot again and was coming to Clarke for help. That could be it. Except, lightning didn’t strike twice like that. Possibilities run rampant through Clarke’s head, everything from a stray cat to the Devil himself crosses her mind. The stray cat theory actually seems decent until the telltale rasp of her window being forced open filters into the apartment. 

Clarke’s breath catches. She can’t run, not without knowing where the intruder was. She has a gun, but....that’s not ideal. Panic begins to lace it’s way through her veins. Her phone is still on the counter, if she could just grab it--

There is another, much more real thump as the window wrenches open and a pair of feet drop to the floor. They take a few steps in her direction and her heart drops. Sweat bursts onto her palms and the grip of the gun begins to feel slick. Then, the step turn and head in the direction of her bedroom. 

Quickly, Clarke lunges for her phone, cursing the brightness of the screen when it lights up. She dims it, puts it on silent, and hovers her finger over 911 for a brief second wondering if it’s the right choice. The pair of arms that come flying over the island takes any choice she may have had away from her. The arms drag her up and over the island and throw her into the back of the couch. The wind gets knocked out of her in an instant and her phone clatters across the floor, though the gun stays in her hand. 

The intruder reaches down and grasps for her neck, getting one hand around it and  _ squeezing _ . Clarke thrashes against them, digging her heels into the floor to get leverage. A second hand tries to follow the first to her neck, missing only by a couple of inches when Clarke kicks away, gasping. 

It’s too dark to see who her attacker is, too dark to know exactly what she’s dealing with. They lash out, kicking Clarke in the side as she struggles to get to her feet. The impact pushes her further across the floor, causing pain to radiate out from the center of her ribs, but putting just enough distance between her and them to get the gun up and hopefully--fuck!--hopefully click the safety off the gun.

“I have a gun!” She yells, pointing it at the dark form in front of her. Her hands are shaking and she having trouble breathing and she does not want to die today. The man, she thinks it’s a man, takes a step forward, as a test maybe. He doesn’t respond to her warning. She brandishes the gun more clearly.

“Stop! Who are you?” Rather than answer, the man charges her. He bellows something and time slows down around Clarke. Seconds become hours as she watches him advance on her with a strange, extreme clarity of focus. She feels her finger brushing across the trigger of the gun, feels her skin move smoothly across it, feels the man’s body crash into hers, feels her finger pull the trigger back and the muffled pop of the muzzle sliding back and firing a bullet into his chest as his weight crashes into her. It’s not as loud as she thought it would be. Or maybe it’s too loud.

The man’s body slumps over her, a tiny spatter of something warm splashing against her fingertips. Jerkily, Clarke shoves his body away and rolls to the side. Air hammers back into her lungs in an unwelcome rush. Face down on her floor, Clarke feels absolutely nothing for a moment. Then the pain in her ribs comes back and the sweat on her hands turns cold and the air in her lungs feels like poison.

“Oh, God.” She chokes out. A fog has drifted over her mind, preventing her from doing anything but hyperventilate and think  _ ‘I just killed a man. I just killed a man.’  _ in a sick loop over and over again. Belatedly, she wonders if he’s actually dead. There are no sounds coming from him and he hasn’t tried to kill her again, so, yeah, he probably was. 

Her phone is a few inches away from her face. She could reach out and grab it with her nearest hand, except that hand is being held down by the weight on the gun in her palm. 

“Come on, Clarke.” She says to...herself? Maybe herself. Whoever was sitting the driver seat at the moment. Her left hand begins to move, picking up the phone and clumsily punching her password in. Her hand doesn’t hesitate over numbers this time. 

The phone rings three, agonizingly long times and Clarke focuses on the cool feeling of the floor against her cheek. On the the fourth ring, it picks up.

“Lexa, I need you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope you liked it! more to come, leave a comment if you feel like it


	3. Ain't No Rest For The Wicked

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so, in light of recent events I'm going to put a disclaimer here that while guns feature in this story, I 100% support gun control legislation. I'm also going to add tags to this story to protect anyone who may be triggered by gun-involved anything. Otherwise, I hope you guys enjoy this and I apologize for how long this took, life got in the way!

**11pm**

 

Lexa leaves Clarke standing illuminated by the lights of her gallery. If she were the type to take pictures, she would have snapped a shot of that visual, of the way the light splashed against Clarke’s face as she turned away. But she wasn’t.

It’s too nice of a night to take a taxi anywhere. Plus, it’s not like she has anything to fear from walking down the street. Walking headfirst into a potential mugger would be an excellent way to blow off steam.

Briefly, Lexa wonders if Octavia is out roaming the streets as well. Her eyes scan the shadowed tops of the buildings above her. Nothing moves. It makes sense. Ground War was probably stalking the rooftops of Chinatown, doing surveillance.

Lexa sucks in a deep breath. This is the longest she’s been outside of the apartment since getting hurt. The city feels like it’s brimming with anticipation, just waiting for her to bear it’s weight again.

She picks up her pace. There is about a mile and half between the gallery and the garage, which is a mile and a half to listen for police sirens and think about what exactly she was walking away from. Or rather,  _ who _ exactly she was walking away from.

Attachment had never been something Lexa was adept in dealing with. Raven was the closest thing she could call a friend, meaning Octavia was barely a tolerated acquaintance. She didn’t have much family, not growing up in the foster system. There was only one person, her foster sister, Anya, that Lexa could truly say she loved.  _ Not _ that she was thinking about love.

She turns a corner. Anya had been her only family for a long, long time. They had met when Lexa was all skinned knees, missing front teeth, and a vicious attitude problem. Anya had been the foundation that kept her from being swept away in the endless floods of uncertainty they faced. Lexa smiles to herself. Anya had never asked her to be anything she wasn’t.

Would Clarke have asked that of her if she had stood outside the gallery for another second? Would she have pushed Lexa to quiet the fire burning her veins every time she looks at the city she grew up in, left, and then reclaimed? Well, it didn’t matter. There was already a mile and a half of distance between them, distance that was most certainly for the best.

The dark outline of the garage comes into view as Lexa is clamping down steel doors on her thoughts. She doesn’t needed this shit clouding her vision, not with the crime in the city boiling as restlessly as it was. 

The garage is lifeless when she slides in the side entrance. No Miller, no Raven, no Octavia to pester her. A bit of peace, perhaps, for a moment.

Lexa drags one foot after another up the stairs to her apartment. The last time she had felt this bone-weary, well...it had been a different Lexa standing in her boots. She unlocks the door and tosses her keys across the room and onto the table. They land with a satisfying clatter. 

“God.” She sighs, letting the door swing closed and stretching her arms up. The tight skin around her stitches pulls a bit, but they feel better than they have all week. A quick check reveals that the hot, red and purple inflammation had faded to a less painful yellow. 

With one finger, Lexa traces the path of Abby’s stitches. They are expertly done, if a little tender. It was a good thing Abby had done the operation  _ before _ she found a reason to dislike her. Or,  _ reasons _ .

Lexa is so absorbed in evaluating her recovery that she almost misses the single, heavy-handed knock on the door. It jolts her, immediately putting her on guard. There’s a chance it could be Raven, but Raven would have just barged right in, boundaries be damned. Octavia, too. 

She rolls her weight to the outsides of her feet--like she was trained to do--and moves back towards the door. It could be Miller. Then again, what purpose would Miller have to seek her out so late?

Another knock hits the door, and this time it’s not just one--it’s a pattern Lexa recognizes. Hit, pause, hit, hit, pause, hit. There are only two people on earth who knew to knock like that. She opens the door.

“Luna?” Outside stands one of last people Lexa thought she would ever see; curly-haired, solemn-eyed, Luna Aquina.

“Let me in. Quickly.” Luna urges. Lexa steps to the side wordlessly, flabbergasted in the face of seeing someone she never thought she’d see again. 

“What are you....how did you...?” Lexa croaks, staring blankly at the bounce of Luna’s hair as she pushes through the doorway. The door shuts of its own accord. Luna ignores her half-question and furiously paces to the windows of the apartment. She presses herself to the brick wall and peers through the fogging glass.

“Luna!” Lexa snaps, louder now that her brain is processing this turn of events. 

“What?” Her guest snarls.

“How the did you find me?” Lexa asks, “ _ Why _ did you find me?”

“I will answer your questions, Woods.” Luna says, “But first, are we safe to talk here?”

“Yes. I live here.” 

“If you’re sure.” Luna allows, finally pulling away from the window and facing Lexa again. Lexa almost flinches at her appearance. To put it lightly, she doesn’t look good. Her hair is tangled and wild, her eyes are shiny and drooping with exhaustion, and her hands shake unsteadily, a polar opposite to the calm, controlled demeanor of her past.

“What happened to you?” Lexa says. Luna catches her eye with suspicion. Distrustful daggers bore into Lexa.

“If you’re asking me that, you haven’t heard about Nyko.”

“What?” Lexa frowns, “What happened to Nyko?”

“He’s dead.”

What.

Luna’s words don’t quite register for a second, and then they do, and they weigh Lexa down like a cinderblock.

“Are you sure?” She says, solemnly.

“Of course I’m sure, that’s why I’m here. I think we’re getting picked off.”

“By who? Do you have proof?”

“I--I don’t have any hard proof.” Luna steps forward and grasps the edge of the table, “But Nyko called me a few weeks ago and told me he thought something was up. A few days later and he’s dead.”

“And you think that our squad is the target? There are only three of us left.”

“Four.” Luna mumbles, digging her fingers into the table and, if it wasn’t clear before, it’s clear now that this Luna, not the one Lexa knew years ago, is borderlining on something near (or maybe beyond) paranoia. 

“Luna, how did Nyko die?”

“Car accident.”

Her answer gives Lexa pause, because ‘car accident’ isn’t what she was expecting. ‘Accident’? People like them were never expected to go out in an accident. Then again, people like them usually all went out the same way. But the point was, that answer did not explain Luna’s mental state or her reappearance in Lexa’s life. A car accident could very well be just that: an accident.

“Luna--”

“ _ Don’t _ tell me I’m crazy. I’m not. I was sane enough to find you in this city.” Luna’s eyes harden, “I gave up that life, Woods. You, apparently, didn’t. If anyone here is crazy...”

Lexa crosses her arms, anger spiking deep in her gut. “You didn’t come here to judge me.”

“No,” Luna says, “I didn’t. I came because I’ve been dodging tails for two weeks.”

“How can you be sure?”

“We trained together, I think we both know I can spot a tail.” Luna snaps.

“Unless you’re creating those tails in your mind.” Lexa says, watching the way the harsh words cause Luna’s face to twist with frustration. She slams her hand on the table and pushes herself towards Lexa.

“I’m not!”

“But you could be. You say you gave up that life. Why would someone want you gone now?”

“I don’t know yet,” Luna says, “But I think I may have an idea as to who that shithead is.”

“Then--” Lexa opens her mouth--about to ask for clear  _ explanation-- _ when her phone buzzes in her pocket. Luna jerks backward at the sound, muscles visibly tightening. 

“Easy, it’s just my phone.” Lexa soothes, shocked by how jumpy her old friend is.

“Who is that?” Luna growls. Lexa glances down at the caller ID. It’s Clarke. The phone buzzes again. 

“Listen, it’s--just give me a second okay? I’ll be right back.”

“We don’t have time, he’s--!”

“One. Second.” Lexa says, because something inside her needs to take this call, needs a breather from the sudden maelstrom of fear and suspicion dripping off of Luna. “I’m going to step outside and take this call and when I come back you are going explain this to me clearly and calmly. Drink some water and sit down. This will only take a minute.” 

Luna curls her lip and darts her eyes around the room, but takes a seat grudgingly. Lexa turns on her heel and practically throws herself out the door. Her phone buzzes a third time, so she pick up her pace down the stairs and across the floor of the garage, hitting ‘answer’ on the fourth ring, once she’s shoving her shoulder into the door.

“Lexa, I need you.” 

Lexa freezes in her tracks outside the garage.  _ What _ .

“Clarke, what?” She says. It’s not that...it’s not that she doesn’t  _ want _ to hear those words from Clarke, but right now she just doesn’t have time for another half-baked Abby-related scheme, not with Luna around.

“I just shot somebody.” Again, Lexa’s heart rate trips over itself and tumbles to a halt.  _ What.  _ She bounds across the street without taking a breath, because she  _ knows _ Luna is at the window, watching, maybe even listening.

“Clarke, are you being serious right now?” Panic is arcing through Lexa’s every cell. This is too much, it’s too much, she needs to breathe--

“Yes.” Clarke croaks through the other line. “I think he’s dead.”

“Are you okay?”

“I think.” Each response is practically monotone. Clarke is obviously in shock. There are a thousand questions running through Lexa’s mind--a lot of ‘why’s’ and a lot of ‘how’s’--too similar to the brick wall of a conversation she had just been in with Luna. A quick glance up reveals that Luna’s shadow is hovering near the window. Lexa clenches her hand. She’s being pulled apart by the molecule right now.

“I--”

_ BOOM! _ Fire. Everything is fire.

A vicious explosion of blinding light roars out of the windows of Lexa’s apartment. Her body takes her to the ground before her mind can react, rolling away even as shards of glass rain onto the pavement and shatter with a delicate chime.

The heat follows. Even through the natural temperature of summer, the outward rush of heat washes over Lexa aggressively. She holds her breath. Waits. Then, it’s over.

Clarke’s voice is coming from somewhere on the sidewalk. Stunned, Lexa’s hand slides across the rough surface until it settles on her phone. Her other hand pushes her up from the ground on locked knees and then she’s throwing herself around the corner of the nearest building. 

“Lexa?” Clarke’s voice echoes, “Lexa, are you there?”

Shakily, Lexa raises the phone to her ear, “I’m here. I need you to stay quiet.”

She switches her phone to silent but keeps it near her ear, counting the way Clarke’s shallow breathing fills the miniscule spaces between her own heartbeats. 

Spots dance in front of her eyes when she leans around the corner and peers around the orange-hued street. Fire is lapping at the edges of her windows, illuminating the pavement and shining on the glass.  _ Luna. _

Luna was in the apartment. The burning, exploded apartment. Lexa had seen explosions before--right in front of her very eyes. A dull stab of pain ricochets around her chest, settling in the meat of her ribs. The rational part of her brain knows the truth:

Luna’s not walking out of this. 

That same part of her brain, the one that is lopsidedly processing how close death had just brushed her shoulder, is also wildly trying to prioritize her situation. That’s good. Objectivity she can do. 

Step one is to make a conscious decision on whether Luna is alive or not. The smoke billowing from the wreckage of the apartment is telling, even though it feels like it’s constricting her lungs at the thought. Stop, her rational brain says, soldiers don’t have time for delirious sentiment. Now is the time for action. 

Luna is most likely dead. Fact. So, step two is to remove herself from the situation in case, as it seems, this explosion was not an accident. 

Step three is to check on Clarke. Their call is still going, though Clarke has respected her request for silence.

“Clarke, are you still okay?” Lexa asks.

“Yes.” Comes the low reply, “Are you? What was that sound?”

“Not relevant. Where are you?” 

“My apartment.”

Step four, get to Clarke.

 

**12:11am**

 

She steals a bike. It’s an ugly, pink monstrosity and it clearly belongs to someone under the age of fourteen. She feels bad, but that is muted against the mounting paranoia that kept her practically crawling through the shadows for seven blocks away from the garage until she felt safe enough to steal the bike and pick up the speed.

As she rides, Luna’s words from earlier start to cascade into place with the sound of the explosion as a backing track. Nyko is dead and now Luna is probably dead, though it is still unclear who exactly the target of the explosion was or where it came from. 

The chain of the bike rattles underneath her. A few cars zip past, oblivious to her, but that’s fair because she’s oblivious to them. Lexa has shut off the part of her brain that appreciates sidewalk flyers and the quirks of the city. All she has the capacity to do now is complete steps until her objective is secure. 

A man yelps when she flashes by and nearly takes off his outstretched arm. He screams a stream of swears at her that barely even register. For someone who lives in the city, he should be used to the frenetic, skin-of-your-teeth kind of movement through its streets. 

She glides the bike around a parking car and curves to the right. Clarke’s apartment building comes into view from a few blocks away. Apprehension breaks through her objective wall. The bike’s rusty spokes groan as she pushes them well beyond what they’re used to. 

The curb comes up quickly though, and she tosses the bike to the ground as soon as possible. It clatters noisily on the cement. Lexa charges to the doors and smashes her finger into the buzzer.

“Clarke! It’s me.” The door is buzzed open without answer. Lexa throws herself through it and forgoes the available elevator for the stairs. She takes them two at a time, hands ghosting over the railings. Her lungs feel like they are going to burst when she finally grinds to a halt outside Clarke’s door. 

“Clarke!” She calls, rapping on the wood, “Cl--”

The door swings open, revealing Clarke in the same dress as earlier, but pale and quiet. Without a word, Lexa strides into the apartment and kicks the door closed behind her. She bustles Clarke away from the door all while swiveling her head around the room to take in the scene.

Ah, well, there it is.

She really shouldn’t be surprised to see the body. He’s crumpled in an awkward position on the floor, dead. The gun is on the ground near him, shining dully under the weak kitchen lights. 

“What happened?” Lexa asks. She turns her focus to Clarke, who is staring at the body and gun on her floor like they are something out of a dream, or more likely, a nightmare. 

“He came in my window. Attacked me. I shot him.” Clarke listlessly waves a hand at the catastrophe on her floor. 

“I need details, Clarke. Please.” Lexa says, though she is already running scenarios in her mind.

“He came in through the fire escape.” 

“Did he say anything?”

“No. He--” Clarke chokes on her words. She waves her hands again and the color of them catches Lexa’s eye. They are a harsh, angry red--especially around the knuckles. Air stalls in Lexa’s throat.

“What happened to your hands?” She whispers. Gingerly, she pulls them into her own and brings them closer. Clarke looks away.

“I had to wash them. There was...there was blood on them.” It comes out barely audible, but no other sounds could possibly reach Lexa at that moment. It’s like her brain has forgotten English unless it’s coming from Clarke’s mouth. Her single-minded focus cracks and crumbles as she takes in the raw skin before her. 

“Clarke,” she says, dropping her hands and cupping her face, “I’m sorry this happened to you.”

Guilt burns wildly through every inch of Lexa’s body. Were Hell to open up and swallow her alive right now, she would let it, welcome it even.  _ She _ brought this on Clarke--like a plague--and now she was going to have to fix it.

“Clarke. Clarke. Look at me.” Lexa pleads. “I need you to do something.”

“What is it?”

“I need you to be a soldier, just for right now.” Lexa says, holding Clarke eyes. “I know you can. Hell, you saved my life  _ twice _ and you didn’t bat an eye. You can do this.”

An unsteady breath rattles out of Clarke’s chest, but she closes her eyes and nods. Lexa holds in a sigh of relief. This was progress, even if it made her sick just to ask for it. 

“Okay,” Clarke says, “okay, what do we do?” 

“We need to leave. Go get a bag, fill it with clothes and necessities. Go, quickly.” Clarke jerks to life and rushes into her bedroom. Drawers slam and the hinges of a closet door creak and echo through the quiet of the apartment. After a moment to collect herself, Lexa dives into action. 

First, she grabs the gun from the floor and brings it into the kitchen, rummaging through Clarke’s scarce cleaning supplies. From there she grabs bleach and rubber gloves, all while holding the barrel of the gun by the tips of her fingers. Once she has the gloves on, she wipes the gun down with a towel and then proceeds to douse it in bleach.

“Clarke,” she calls, “did you load or unload the gun at all?”

“Yes.” Clarke calls back. 

Lexa slides the clip out and bleaches that, too. A kind of desperate superspeed has taken over her actions, because if they don’t get a move on, trouble is bound to come knocking. Or exploding. 

“I have everything.” Clarke returns as Lexa is running water over the separate parts of the gun, “What about....him?”

The both stare at the body. 

“Do you think anybody heard the gunshot?” Lexa asks.

“No,” Clarke shakes her head, “A lot of these apartments are empty and Edith from across the hall was leaving when I arrived. Plus, you know, his...he muffled the shot, I think.” 

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay.” Lexa takes the gun and stuffs it in the waistband of her jeans and then sticks the still-wet gloves in a pocket of Clarke’s bag, “I’ll deal with this, but we need to go.”

“Am I going to go to jail?”

“Not if I can help it. Come on.” Lexa starts towards the door, trailing her hand behind her. She doesn’t look--doesn’t dare to--so when Clarke’s hand settles in her own, it’s an almost pleasant shock. She squeezes it lightly before tugging Clarke with her and out the door.

They slink out of the apartment and lock the door behind them. The adrenaline pumping through Lexa’s veins is familiar and comfortable, even with the new factor of Clarke. Although, it’s not like they haven’t done this before. Lexa almost expects turn and see Quint chasing after them in a humorless sequel to the hospital. 

She eases the door to the stairs open and holds it for Clarke to slip through. It closes with a soft ‘click’. Their breathing faintly echoing through the stairwell is the only sound besides Lexa’s heartbeat in her ears. She checks every shadow for a threat and feels her muscles twitch for the gun in her waistband. Yet, they make it to the ground floor without problem. 

“Where are we going?” Clarke whispers as they creep out the back entrance to the building. 

“Somewhere safe.” Lexa mumbles. She straightens up and pulls her hat down over her face. Then, she guides Clarke to her side and wraps an arm around her. “Walk fast, but relaxed.”

Clarke visibly schools her face into a ‘relaxed’ look and tucks herself more tightly into Lexa’s grip. Her arm snakes around Lexa’s waist, but her fingers jump when they brush the grip of the gun. Lexa catches them with her free hand and places it in between Clarke’s and the gun. The fingers flutter one more time, and then quiet. 

“Why is it that we’re always running from something when we see each other?” Clarke asks. The life in her voice partially eases a worry deep in Lexa’s gut. It may have been brought on by adrenaline, but she’d take a sarcastic, focused Clarke over a despondent, vacant Clarke any day. 

“Actually, it’s only been two out of the three times we’ve seen each other.” 

“Semantics.” Clarke snorts. Her hand is shaking over Lexa’s, but she’s putting on a brave face. Lexa pulls her even closer, wracked by frustration that she can’t fix this immediately, can’t reset to earlier that night and redo the past few hours. 

“You can complain about semantics as much as you want.” Lexa grins tightly, though she keeps her eyes alert, “Doesn’t change the fact that I’m right.”

“ _ Semantics, _ you jerk.” 

  
  


**1:13am**

 

The safe place is a small warehouse squatting in between two slightly larger buildings. It’s not pretty, what with it’s grimy windows and stained brick, but it is their best and only option. Clarke stares at it as they approach.

“Is this it?” She says, exhaustion clearly bearing down on her. Lexa just nods tiredly. Their walk hadn’t been overtly long, but the stress of seeing threats in every passerby and tensing at every car horn and burst of drunken laughter was taking it’s toll. 

“It’s mine.” Lexa says, leading the way to the door, before freezing. She doesn’t have the real key. The real key is in the smoldering ruins of her apartment.

“What do you mean, ‘it’s yours’? Like, you own the whole building?”

“Yes.” Lexa pauses, turns, and then trudges into the side alley of the warehouse. It doesn’t smell great. “I bought it.”

“With what money?” Clarke jogs after her, “No offense.”

“I would love to explain it to you right here, but I am getting tired of checking the rooftops every thirty seconds. Let’s just get inside so I can do a sweep.”

“You know, sometimes when you talk, you sound like a--”

“Soldier?” Lexa grunts. She walks to the back door and nearly cries with relief when it doesn’t have an outer lock. It’s old and wooden, but she can most certainly get it open. “Step back.”

Clarke moves out of the way and slouches against the wall. Lexa backs up too, and cracks a joint in her shoulder. She breathes deep and stares straight ahead. Then, she runs forward and slams full force into the door. The weak interior lock splinters out of the wood with a snap and the door swings open, revealing nothing but an inky black space. 

“Shit.” Lexa mutters, clutching her shoulder, “That’s gonna bruise.”

“That was possibly the most unnecessary thing you’ve ever done.” Clarke says, even as she is carefully peering inside like something is going to fly out and snatch her. 

“You haven’t known me that long, I’m sure I can top that.” 

“Actually, wait, you did top that when you launched yourself through my gallery window.”

“There was a reason--”

“Semantics.” Clarke repeats, gesturing towards her, “Is it safe to go inside?”

“Let’s find out.” Lexa says, resting her hand on the gun. She pushes Clarke behind her and takes a wary first step into the darkness. The floor is concrete and does little to muffle their footsteps as they shuffle in. The space is large, but not so large that once Lexa’s eyes adjust to the dark she can’t see each wall.

“Okay, second floor now and then I’ll check again and put the door back.” She whispers. Clarke’s hands tap a silent agreement into her back. They make their way across the warehouse floor and then over to the rusting, ancient-looking spiral iron staircase that leads to the second floor loft. It groans loudly when Lexa puts the barest of pressure on it.

“Well, there goes the element of surprise.” She mutters. They creak their way up the staircase one step at a time until they are standing in the loft, which is bare save for a wooden table, a couple of crates, and a bright blue couch. Lexa pulls her phone out and shines it’s flashlight around the crates. Nothing moves.

“Are we good?” Clarke asks.

“I think so. I’m going to check again, though. Wait here.”

Lexa leaves Clarke where she’s standing and bounds back down the staircase. She sweeps every corner of the first floor thoroughly, with a flashlight this time. Then, she returns to the back door and closes it tightly enough that it at least looks like it’s still intact. Sort of. 

It didn’t matter. As long as the door didn’t just break off the hinges at the slightest gust of wind, she would take it. That went for the rest of the building, too. There’s only so much she can do in the middle of the night.

Clarke is sitting on the couch with her head in her hand in her hands when Lexa makes it back up the staircase.

“Clarke? Are you alright?”

“Yeah, I’m just...processing, you know?” Clarke drags her hand through her hair, “While you were sweeping it all just kind of hit me.”

“Do you need...?” Lexa trails off. She has no idea what to offer in this situation. She is a pro at dealing with things in the moment, but the after part? After not so much.

“You really know what you’re doing. You had me distracted enough to make jokes. Someone tried to kill me tonight and you just showed up and dealt with it. Just like that.” Clarke continues, like she didn’t even hear. Lexa closes the distance between them and hovers her hands around Clarke, completely unsure.

“Clarke, I don’t think--”

“And I know something else happened tonight. You’re just avoided telling me.” Clarke looks up finally and Lexa catches a glimpse of her red-rimmed, dry, tired eyes. “What was it?”

“Clarke.”

“Just tell me, Lexa.”

“Fine.” Lexa sighs, because she’s bone-weary and because somehow she’s wrapped Clarke up in whatever hellpit her life is descending into. Clarke deserves to know this, at least. “Someone tried to kill me tonight, too.”

“What!” Clarke yelps, immediately surging forward and grabbing a handful of Lexa’s jacket. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“You were more important.” Lexa shrugs uncomfortably, “Objectively.”

“Objectively? Lexa, what? Call me crazy, but I don’t think that one potential assassination weighs any heavier than another!” Clarke stares at Lexa like she’s speaking another language. She’s not, though, not really. Clarke took precedence over her for a number of reasons. All of the reasons, actually. That was just common sense.

“I knew what I was doing.” She says. Clarke still doesn’t let go.

“What the fuck.” Clarke laughs, “I can’t believe I’m sitting in an abandoned warehouse with a vigilante after nearly dying and the thing that’s sticking out the most is the fact that the goddamn vigilante is disregarding the fact that she, too, almost died.”

“I didn’t die.” Lexa says, voice low, “But a friend of mine did.”

Clarke’s hysterical laughter chokes in her throat. Lexa tries to pull away, but Clarke holds her in place, a look of shock plain on her face. 

“Lexa...what?” Clarke croaks, “Why didn’t you...?”

“She came to warn me that I was in danger. You called, I stepped outside, and  _ boom _ , my apartment explodes. I can only assume it was supposed to be me.”

“Lexa, I’m so sorry.” Clarke says, clearly reeling from the onslaught of new information. For the first time that night, tears shine in her eyes, barely visible in the faint street light from the windows.

“No, Clarke, _ I’m _ sorry. None of this is your fault. For whatever reason, your association with me put you in danger. That’s on my head.” Lexa breathes. Guilt is once again tearing it’s claws through every layer of flesh inside her body. She hangs her head. “Only mine.”

Clarke doesn’t say anything, so they stay like that, Clarke on the couch, Lexa crouched on the ground. Outside, police sirens screech and cars honk and the city continues to relentlessly keep turning even though for two of its residents, this night feels like it has been frozen in reality. Seconds tumble past, then minutes, maybe hours, but it doesn’t feel real. The only thing that reminds them that this isn’t a dream is the familiar pulse of the city in the background, keeping time.

Clarke’s fists are still full of Lexa’s jacket, so when the latter shifts, she jumps at the movement and drops her hands. 

“You need to rest.” Lexa says, “You will feel better if you rest.”

“What about you?” 

“I have a few things I need to do. But don’t worry, I’m not going to leave you.” For a moment, Clarke looks like she’s going to argue, but then she closes her mouth and nods. 

“You need to rest, too.”

“I will,” Lexa assures her, “just not yet.” 

“Okay.’

Clarke stretches out on the bumpy coach and tucks her knees inward. She gives Lexa a half-hearted smile. Lexa gives her her jacket. 

“Take it.” She says, “Sleep well.”

Clarke nestles under the jacket gratefully and Lexa feels a weird moment of pride over owning a jacket that’s just a bit too big. 

“Thank you.” Clarke mumbles, already halfway to sleep. Lexa stays and watches until her breathing evens out and her soft exhales are blowing one golden strand of hair up and down. Only then does she walk away and slide, exhausted, down one of the crates. There would be no sleep for her, she acknowledges as she pulls out her phone, not for a while. 

No, no rest for the wicked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, there's Chapter 3...what could be coming in Chapter 4? A few answers, maybe? I don't know.

**Author's Note:**

> If you want to chat about this AU you can find me at @clarkecommander on tumblr.


End file.
